James’s blog: fascinating trackers research and fruitful meetings

Welcome to my blog! This week I’m talking about the importance of connecting with our customers through the right language and some exciting meetings

Tuesday

I started with our weekly team meeting which is becoming increasingly professional as we’re all under pressure to deliver in our own sections. I then spent time running through our catalogue which is looking amazing and which I’m delighted to see is already attracting strong interest from customers.

We all spent the rest of the day with Paul Twivy from Core Purpose who recently conducted some fascinating research for us. Paul’s debrief to the whole team was detailed, illuminating and extremely useful. For example, one of the most important outcomes was that visitors to the site sometimes find the phrase ‘living well with dementia’ patronising. They prefer, instead, to think in terms of ‘coping better with dementia’ which makes perfect sense.

Many people also don’t consider themselves ‘carers’ but simply family members or loved ones doing what they feel is right. This is really important information, it’s clear that if we’re going to connect with our customers we must hone our language. It was great to sit down with the whole team and discuss these issues so that we can refine our brand. I’m really grateful to Zoltan Bozoky for joining us at the meeting and making such a valuable contribution.

I finished the day with a lovely dinner with Caroline our finance director, who’s just got married. It was great to catch up and talk about the future of Unforgettable.

Wednesday

I spent a lot of time working with our charity partners including the Alzheimer’s Society, Dementia UK and Alzheimer’s Disease International – who we’re building a co-branded product range with. We’re also working closely with Carers UK who are doing a 6 -page article about us in the next issue of Carer magazine (out in April). All very positive.

Thursday

Started the day in meetings with new investors who are keen to get involved in the next phase of our growth. There seems to be overwhelming interest and support in what we’re doing which is so encouraging. The next fundraiser will be a very big one.

Later, I met with the charity Marie Curie, who contacted us to see how we could work together. It was a great meeting with such a respected charity. I’m sure there’s a lot we can do together.
I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the next trustee meeting of The Unforgettable Foundation. We want to focus on how best to spend the foundation’s first £10,000 grant, to help those affected by dementia.

Friday

Usually my day off, but I met David at lunchtime and we travelled to Bath to meet our charity partner Designability to review the outcome of their consultancy work for us, testing the most popular tracking devices. It was a very positive meeting – a great way to end the week.

And finally…

I’m massively behind with work so I spent most of the weekend trying to catch up and feeling guilty if I wasn’t working – one of the downsides of being involved with your own business. But I’ve had plenty of positive experiences this week to more than compensate for a ‘working’ weekend. Most heartening of all is the fact that amazing charities such as Marie Curie and Young Dementia are now contacting us and expressing genuine interest in what we do. When I first started Unforgettable I spent months chasing people and trying to persuade charities to work with us, so this feels like a major achievement…even better than finally clearing my inbox!